In this video:

Matthew Sweetwood, President of Unique Photo of Fairfield NJ, speaks with Vickie Siculiano about the future of smartphones and photography and their use in online marketing. (part 4 of a 9 part interview)

Vickie: Yes. Absolutely. With that. I want to ask you this. We spoke a little bit about smartphones, we’ve spoken about social media. We both know that a lot of social media takes place on these. Wherever you are, it’s always available, it’s ready. It’s totally you. I know it. I follow you on Twitter all the time. Yup. That’s it. I just wanted to speak to you about smartphones and what your thoughts are, where it’s going. The importance of user generated content. I think that’s something I want to hear from you about.

Matthew: See, smartphone, the magic of the smartphone is the communication device that’s with you when things happen. It’s the one that you’re most likely to have. Most of us actually walk around with smartphone. I always want to say mine has a nipple on it. I feed like a baby on it. It’s in my hand as much as babies hold their bottles. For me, that’s really the driving aspect of it.

There’s a secondary photography aspect of it. We talk from a photography perspective. The photography that comes out of cellphones is really relatively poor despite what people think. It still can capture the moment. The good news in the camera area with the relation part, cameras are improving dramatically as we go. You’re going to see a whole new lines of camera that actually communicate.

The cameras are going to take awesome pictures and communicate and they’re going to work in conjunction with your smartphone. You’re going to want to have multiple devices with you. It’s going to be worth it because the smartphone is going to be your communication device and for that quick emergency picture. Then your phone is going to be, your camera is going to be the device that really capture those really important pictures and communicate through your phone to the camera.

Vickie: Okay. I’m not familiar with this at all. Could you tell me a little bit more about this? A camera is going to communicate with the smartphone?

Matthew: You’re going to see technology like Wi-Fi direct and bluetooth direct and other methods that are going to connect your camera with your smartphone. Cameras that you carry with you, you’ll be able to take a picture. I saw a technology coming from Samsung, in some of their new camera, you’ll be able to take a Samsung phone and you’re going to be able to touch the camera.

You take a picture with the camera, you touch it to the phone, just touch it. The picture will open up in the phone. Then you can communicate that picture in any way that you normally would. Whether Facebook, LinkedIn, email, whatever it is that you want to do.

Vickie: Transfers from something like this direct to a smartphone?

Matthew: Right. A lot of the cameras do it now. Some of them do it, but not very well. You’re going to see that technology dramatically improve. What’s going to happen is you’re going to be able to get the quality that you’re able to get from a camera. All the advantages that you get from a camera, lenses and so on. You’re going to be able to still communicate those pictures, because when you really think about a picture taking circumstance, even when you have your smartphone, it’s usually one picture you’re sending.

You want to capture the essence of it. The camera affords you. It’s very hard to take multiple pictures with a cellphone. It’s very slow. On top of that, you want to use your mobile device when you’re actually out there. When you’re taking pictures, you can’t use it. The camera will allow you to capture multiple, multiple images. Change the settings. Do all sorts of things to really capture the moment, then pick that one picture, tap it, touch it, transmit it, whatever – to your phone. Then communicate it.

To me, that’s the future. There’s just physics limitation in a smartphone that are going to prevent real, real photography. They are getting better, they do get better. Under the right circumstances, they can. Everybody always point to that one amazing picture they took with a smartphone and go, “See, I did this amazing picture.” The reality is in most cases, they don’t capture and people are accepting missing photographs. The camera world is going to boost its self by really building that technology into the camera.

Vickie: That’s fascinating.

Matthew: You carry a purse, throw a nice little point and shoot or a small mirrorless camera in your bag. You’ve seen those mirrorless cameras. When you’re in a place where you really need photography, you take it out, shoot. You’ll have that one unbelievable picture. Touch It to your phone and you’ll be able to transmit it, do everything you want with it.

Vickie: Ready to go. No cables, no Wi-fi little cards that go in here.

Matthew: Wi-fi is okay, but Wi-fi doesn’t really get you what you need, because what you really do with a smartphone? It’s that picture you want to share instantly. It is a wonderful product, you can upload pictures when you’re in a Wi-Fi location and so on. To me, being able to quickly communicate the picture, I mean, you see me, my social media is just filled with on the spot kind of stuff. I really welcome being able to carry a camera with my smartphone in my pocket. Be able to shoot. Then I have that one magic shot you want to be able to send.

Vickie: I understand that, because I’ve done event marketing. I know that in an event you’re twitting with hashtag that’s related to that event. It’s very, very time sensitive. You need that immediacy of a smartphone.

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